Julia did not see anything significant in this remark at first.  But after a while it came to her that Humphreys must have told her mother of something that had passed during the preceding night, something on which this commendation was founded.  Then she fell into the same torpor and was in the same old spider’s web, and there was the same spider with the limited smile and the mustache and the watch-seals and the straps!  And he was trying to fasten her, and she said “yes.”  And she could see the little word.  The spider caught it and spun it into a web and fastened her with it.  And she could break all the other webs but those woven out of that one little word from her own lips.  That clung to her, and she could neither fly nor walk.  August could not help her—­he would not come.  Her mother was helping the spider.  Just then Cynthy Ann came along with her broom.  Would she see her and sweep her free?  She tried to call her, but alas! she was a fly.  She tried to buzz, but her wings were fast bound with the webs.  She was being smothered.  The spider had seized her.  She could not move.  He was smiling at her!

Then she woke shuddering.  It was after midnight.

CHAPTER XV.

THE WEB BROKEN.

“Poverty,” says Beranger, “is always superstitious.”  So indeed is human extremity of any sort.  Julia’s healthy constitution had resisted the threatened illness, the feverishness had gone with the headache.  She felt now only one thing:  she must have a friend.  But the hard piousness of Cynthy Ann’s face had never attracted her sympathy.  It had always seemed to her that Cynthy disapproved of her affection quite as much as her mother did.  Cynthy’s face had indeed a chronic air of disapproval.  A nervous young minister said that he never had any “liberty” when sister Cynthy Ann was in his congregation.  She seemed averse to all he said.

But now Julia felt that there was just one chance of getting advice and help.  Had she not in her dream seen Cynthy Ann with a broom?  She would ask help from Cynthy Ann.  There must be a heart under her rind.

But to get to her.  Her mother’s affectionate vigilance never left her alone with Cynthy.  Perhaps it was this very precaution that had suggested Cynthy Ann to her as a possible ally.  She must contrive to have a talk with her somehow.  But how?  There was one way.  Black-eyed people do not delay.  Bight or wrong, Julia acted with sharp decision.  Before she had any very definite view of her plan, she had arisen and slipped on a calico dress.  But there was one obstacle.  Mr. Humphreys kept late hours, and he might be on the front-porch.  She might meet him in the hall, and this seemed worse to her than would the chance of meeting a tribe of Indians.  She listened and looked out of her window; but she could not be sure; she would run the risk.  With silent feet and loud-beating heart she went down the hall to the back upper porch, for in that day porches were built at the back and front of houses, above and below.  Once on the back-porch she turned to the right and stood by Cynthy Ann’s door.  But a new fear took possession of her.  If Cynthy Ann should be frightened and scream!